Stephen Derrett stormed to a hugely impressive win in the Gloucester Half Marathon in what was his first running race since 2024.

The Western Tempo runner went round in one hour, seven minutes, one second, finishing more than three minutes ahead of his nearest rival.

“I was very happy, I’d not done a race for a couple of years. I’m a triathlete mainly,” he said.

“Running is part of that. I like to do a few things to sharpen up. I enjoyed it.”

Derrett, who lives in Cheltenham, is an elite triathlete who was running the Gloucester Half for the first time.

“I beat my previous best which I set in Newport a couple of years ago by more than a minute,” he continued. “As with that race I was out on my own for most of yesterday’s race.

“For me, it wasn’t about winning the race, it was about seeing how fast I could go.”

Sam Griffiths, of Cardiff-based Les Croupiers, was second in 1.10.07, with Stroud Athletic Club’s Lee Stopford third in 1.10.15.

Derrett, who joined Western Tempo in 2021, took up triathlon about 10 years ago and has come on in leaps and bounds.

He says, modestly, that he is “pretty handy” but he’s a lot better than that.

An illness sidelined him for about six months last year, but in December he won an extreme triathlon in Chile – the Patagonman Xtri – an event in which he beat two-times Olympic Games gold medal winner Alistair Brownlee.

That followed his victory in Ironman Copenhagen in 2024 when he completed the course in the very quick time of seven hours, 54 minutes.

He was also part of the Great Britain Age Group team when he won the amateur world championships in Ibiza in 2023 and he said: “I’ve been getting better every year.”

His next big event is a half ironman in Gran Canaria next month and it’s something that he’s really looking forward to.

“It’s my first professional race,” he said. “I won a £40 voucher for winning the Gloucester Half, that’s the most I’ve ever won.

“When I won in Copenhagen, that was in front of 4,000 people but it was an amateur event.” 

Bredon-born Derrett, a Cambridge University graduate, expects the field in Gran Canaria to be really strong and that will also be the case if he takes part in Ironman Brazil in May.

“I’m hoping to go to Brazil,” he said. “Chile was the first time I’d been to South America, I loved it.”

And Derrett also loves triathlon.

“I enjoy swimming the most,” he said. “I train at Cheltenham Lido. There’s a really good group there, but it’s probably my weakest of the three disciplines.

“Running is probably my best but it’s where I get injured.

“I love cycling, particularly in the sun in places like Majorca, going up the mountains.”